Resveratrol - Live Longer?
Resveratrol is a chemical found in the skin of grapes and in red wine that has long been conjectured to be a partial explanation for the French paradox, the puzzling fact that people in France enjoy a high-fat diet yet suffer less heart disease than Americans. More recently, scientists have been exploring whether resveratrol could extend lifespan as well.
The hope is that resveratrol or a compound based on it could mimic the effects of a severely restricted diet, which has been shown to extend the life of mice. A low level of caloric intake appears to activate a class of proteins known as sirtuins that regulate metabolism; researchers have shown that other natural substances can trigger sirtuins, and resveratrol appears to be particularly potent at that task.
Scientists caution that results involving animals often do not translate into drugs that work in humans. And the experiments conducted so far have been based on a level of resveratrol consumption that would be impractical, to say the least -- one involved the equivalent of drinking 100 bottles of red wine a day, while a later study brought that down to about 35. Researchers are hoping to find a way to concentrate the effect into a manageable dose.
